hellorhighwater | [GENESSIA] Inbox

NEIL BLAIR
Black Fire of the Night Dragon
Kingslayer
Dragon Mage

(Spillover for threads, muse contact, mun contact--circle all that apply.)

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From:

hellorhighwater

Neil...

In Genessia City, from the safety of his bed, Neil Blair's eyes snapped open with perfect alertness, the mournful whisper ringing in his head and his ears as he sat up in bed. He slept light, outside the comfort of Regina's arms, and with the familiar rush of magic dragging his mind back to consciousness, it left no room for lingering fatigue or cobwebs.

Rolling over without hesitation, Neil called her phone--and felt a chill in his blood when he got no answer. It was weird when she messaged him before instead of calling, but he chalked it up to work or stuff with the kids, but she'd activated his summoning spell.

Something was wrong.

Rolling out of bed, Neil called a sprite to life and reached for his phone, holding it up to the sprite.

"Find Regina. Give her my love, and give her this. Keep vigil until I get there...and if she be in the presence of one with foul intent? Take out their eyes."

The sprite floated forward, touching the phone and causing it to vanish in a flash of dragon fire before it sailed out of the room.

While Neil put on some clothes, the sprite traveled ahead. Just a few minutes after Regina's whispered utterance, a cheerful little flame sailed through the wall with a soft whoosh of air, floating until it hovered in front of Regina, waiting patiently to be noticed. Once it was spotted, it drifted closer, and in a flash of dragon flame, Neil's phone appeared and fell quietly into her lap. A small spark separated from the flame then, touching Regina's shoulder and vanishing.

The illusion of Neil's arms around her pressed close, and remained while the little tongue of fire sailed into her door, morphing into a curtain of warm, glittering coal energy that stood protectively until about twenty minutes later, when it vanished with the sound of Neil's key in the door. As he let himself in, his voice preceded him.

"Beloved! You okay?"

From:

fondofapples

When the sprite arrived with Neil's love, his phone, and the feel of his arms around her, she could've kissed it. Literally. Especially if it would've kissed Neil back. She wished he'd sent a message carrier or a different phone so she could actually call him and he wouldn't panic, but he was coming, the sprite would keep her safe, and--because she'd had it with the day, she didn't bother to move, just very careful pulled a blanket from the bed, and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"Down here," she answered tiredly and not very snappishly from her seat on the floor with her knees against her chest. Hard to be snappish when she'd been bathed in the heat of his dragon fire and the feel of his love for twenty minutes now. "I'm...fine is probably overstatement but in little immediate danger."

From:

hellorhighwater

Shutting the door behind him, Neil turned towards her--and the moment he saw her huddled by the bed, wrapped in a blanket and looking strangely small and vulnerable for...well, Regina, he felt a cold, black fury settle into his veins. It was a comfortable fit, so cold it burned, with a rush of white noise that filled his thoughts and packed into his heart lest it buckle under the weight of a kill.

Because someone was going to die if she was hurt.

Darting across the room, he knelt beside her and reached out to take her face between his hands with infinite care. Everything in him felt cold, dead, ready for blood--but his eyes burned without his knowledge, pupils glittering with the red-orange of pure flame, his expression an open mix of fear, fury, and concern borne of the same love he'd sent to shelter her in his absence.

"Oh, Angel..." he breathed, the fury fracturing as he took in the sight of her face streaked with tears, with familiar little touches of swelling he recognized from having taken his fair share of sword pommels to the face in combat. "My beautiful angel..."

Sinking down to both knees in front of her, Neil leaned forward to gently press a kiss to her forehead, just above the bridge of her nose.

From:

fondofapples

"I'm fine." Futile and pointless protest, considering he'd heard her summon him, and she knew it. She sighed and let her eyes close under the gentle press of his lips against her forehead.

"Be careful I don't elbow you in the face," she said flatly. It clearly wasn't a threat, but what sounded like a tired and true warning. "Or kick you in the balls. Or bite through your lip. Or get gum in your hair." At that last, she whimpered a little and lifted her hands to cover her face--

And just as she'd warned, clocked him in the jaw far harder than the movement of her hands should have permitted. "I'm sorry!" Regina all but wailed and the tears started trickling down her cheeks.

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil didn't know what to make of her warning--he just hated how weary she looked--

The blow wasn't one he was expecting, and the fact that he wasn't ready for it a testament to the comfort of her presence, the perfect trust he had in her. A trust that put him right on his ass as the accidental uppercut caught him with a grunt, rattling his teeth as his hand flew to his chin with a sharp curse in the dragon tongue.

Her wail of apology drew his attention swiftly away from the bruise he'd likely have in the morning, as did the fresh tears he saw when he looked into her face again.

"Regina--hey, I'm fine." he soothed. Instead of taking to his knees again, he crawled closer, shifting to sit leaning up against her drawn up knees and reaching out for her hands.

"See? Fine. It's gonna take a fuck of a lot more than an uppercut to keep me down." he assured her, the fire in his eyes dying, doused by the heartache he felt for her abject misery. "It was just an accident--promise, you got nothin' on a pissed off shadow dragon, Beautiful. C'mon, please don't cry..."

From:

fondofapples

She didn't want to cry, or really even feel like crying. It had just been the sort of day where... "I can't help it. It's...like everything else today. It just happens." Which wasn't entirely true, because she felt reasonably confident the tears were her own and not whatever bad mojo had gotten stuck to her.

"I..." She sighed and very slowly, very very slowly and carefully, watching her hand through the tears the whole time, reached out to take his fingers. "Must've have touched something I shouldn't have at the carnival." Telling him, it was mortifying, but at the same time it was like letting foul air out of her lungs. "All day, I've had the worst luck and my magic keeps backfiring. I thought I'd just go to bed and sleep it off, but..."

Her shoulders heaved with an exaggerated shrug as she eyed the bottle of aspirin and the water on her nightstand. "I tried to get out of bed to get some water, the bed sheets tripped me, and I couldn't take it anymore."

From:

hellorhighwater

...so she'd triggered the summoning spell.

With a sympathetic smile, Neil ran his thumb across her knuckles, watching her miserable looking face with a swell of affection that was borderline painful--she looked like hell, her nerves were shot to shit, and he was definitely going to have a nasty bruise in the morning...

And she was so exquisite he couldn't breathe for how he loved her.

"Sounds like you doused a torch at the first stroke of dawn--least that's one of the things shadow dragons say cause bad luck." he explained with a soft smile. "Lucky for you? I know just how to fix it."

Leaning in--with a deliberate lack of caution--Neil pressed a slow, soft kiss to her mouth, letting that sweet ache of love throb in his chest and effervesce in his veins alongside the magic and the fire that lived there, filling him with the light only she could bring.

"C'mon." he whispered when the kiss broke, nuzzling his nose against hers. "Let's start by gettin' you back into bed, huh?"

From:

fondofapples

At least he hadn't assumed she'd broken a mirror. "No torch--" His mouth covered hers, the kiss slow, sweet and full of the love he'd been professing dozens of different ways since more or less the night he met her. Dahgo. And it had been deepening ever since.

I love you, too, Neil she thought, but didn't dare try to speak in case it came out all twisted and wrong.

Her hand slid up his arm instinctively and--that rainbow pearlescent oily slick feeling she'd had all day popped like a soap bubble and was gone. Relief cascade over her in shivering shuddering waves and she smiled against his jaw. "It must have had a time duration. I felt it break when--"

Her eyes went wide and her fingertips went to her lips. Of course the kiss tasted as it always did, charred marshmallow was how she thought of it. Was it...?

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil didn't know much of magic outside his fire, or the raw stuff he had to force into function. All he really knew of magic beyond that and the Five Realms was Regina's power, and that always reminded him of the shadow dragons in all the best ways: dark, cool, silken. What he felt when he kissed her--it felt like a breaking, an unpleasant shadow that ran down the spine and was gone. The room felt strangely warmer, softer for its departure, and Regina had to feel it too with the way she shivered.

She looked a little thunderstruck, but Neil wasn't sure why. Peering into her face with a hopeful little smile, he just curled a hand over her shoulder, thumb straying to caress her collarbone with slow, reassuring strokes.

"What, like a hex? You said you think you touched something at the carnival...that mean you're okay now? It--what, did it wear off?"

From:

fondofapples

"In my world and Evie's," she began, a little unsteadily, uncertainly... she didn't know if it was what it seemed to be. His love was true enough, but magic decided, not human hearts, and she didn't want to mislead him. Then again what did it matter, his love was true enough and she had no doubt that she loved him, too.

She covered his hand on her shoulder with her own hand and dipped her head. From beneath coal-black lashes, she glanced up at him and gave him a shy, sweet smile.

"In my world and Evie's, True Love's Kiss can break any curse."

From:

hellorhighwater

There was no question in his mind that any kiss they shared was true love's kiss. True love was what he'd chosen, the path he walked to reach her, reach moments like this--huddled on the floor, a mess of bruises and bad luck, greedy for even the worst of it.

She'd explained True Love in her world, about Robin and her stepkid and shit like that--but everything she told him didn't fit what they shared.

"But...that's the true love of heroes and shit." he replied, tone uncertain despite the small, thunderstruck little smile on his face. The idea that his love could break a curse, could be good enough and true enough to save her, even from just a little bad luck?

He was no hero, no savior. He wasn't pure, and he still struggled some days to walk the path. For Ember's sake, she was a queen. He was an assassin, a soldier.

How could someone like him break a curse?

From:

fondofapples

"Daniel was a stableboy," Regina reminded him, her voice low and soft, and a little unsteady. The possibility that she might have found a third True Love in a lifetime...when she was who she was, it had her fingers trembling and her heart...confused. Joyous, but confused.

"Anyone can find True Love. Even the Dark One." Belle's love had almost turned him back to a man years before she cast the Dark Curse. How much different would everything be if he'd allowed it? She wouldn't have Henry, which made it hard, always, to regret how this all had happened.

From:

hellorhighwater

The Dark One--another name to go on his list. Regina had told him a little about Rumpelstiltskin, and he yet lived so his name would have to wait to reach the Sky Maker...but Neil was making ready those who were destined to suffer his wrath. Still, the idea that even that son of a bitch could find True Love, could break a curse with it...

Spotting her shaking fingers, Neil caught her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her fingers--letting that love swell in his chest again.

Just in case the curse's magic wasn't totally gone. If she was right, if he did this...he'd do it right.

"Maybe it's just you." he pointed out, shifting back up to his knees so he crouched in front of her. "When you got a heart that doesn't know any other way but love...maybe it's always gonna be true."

With a little smile, he reached out to unwrap the blanket from around Regina's shoulders, then scooted around so he could gather her into his arms and get to his feet, holding her against his chest. He'd seen her ankle as well, and figured it was time he returned the favor she'd done for him the night his arm flared up.

"We'll worry about it later. For now? Let's get you patched up, huh?" he sighed, kissing her forehead as he carried her towards the bathroom. "Your ankle's a mess and your nose has a little swelling--lucky for you, I got a little bit of healing magic and a whole lotta experience in sparring injuries. Fix you up, settle you down--let you sleep the rest of this shitty day off, 'kay?"

From:

fondofapples

A heart that doesn't know any other way but love... Was that how he saw her, really? Snow had said she felt more than everyone. Felt things more deeply. But was that love or just sensitivity? She'd hated viciously, but she thought Snow would have said that was just the other side of love.

So lost in the thoughts he'd sparked that she'd stopped paying attention, she was startled when he lifted her. Felt off balance, abruptly and grabbed for his arms to steady herself, before she realized he had her and it wasn't the bad luck ensnaring them again.

She nodded once quickly, acquiescent. "But you'll stay, won't you?" It wasn't fear or loneliness or longing. She'd just had a hell of a long week already, she felt raw, and she wanted the comfort and safety his presence offered.

From:

hellorhighwater

"You'd have to kill me to make me leave--and you can't do that anymore." he pointed out with a grin, setting her to sit on the edge of the tub after he walked into the bathroom. "The man without a heart is the man that cannot die, so you're...screwed."

Pausing between words to bend over and press a deliberately ticklish kiss to the curve of her neck, he knelt in front of her on one knee, lifting her foot so he could manipulate it gently this way and that, gauging the amount of pain she was in and whether or not it was worse than a bad sprain.

"Let's see...tell me if this hurts, 'kay? I mean blind screaming pain, I know it's gotta hurt right now."

From:

fondofapples

"I don't want you to leave." As raw as she felt right now, the prospect of trying to be a smartass or snark at him was beyond unappealing. He'd have to deal with her being genuine and on the nose. Hopefully it wouldn't send him into a tailspin.

She gave him her foot willingly too, let him move it this way and that as any competent doctor or healer would. There was no suppressing the wincing and owing, but there was no blinding, screaming pain. Just enough for her to manage, "I take it back. Touch my foot again and you can leave," but then catch his gaze and smile pathetically.

From:

hellorhighwater

The lack of buffers that were her biting remarks was something he enjoyed--and when she did snark at him, she just got a grin in return.

Followed by him reaching out deliberately to run a finger gently, rebelliously along her instep.

"Nah, seriously--this we can fix." he assured her, setting her foot back on the ground carefully. "It'll take some time, but I can use magic to speed the healing similar to the headache trick. Now lemme look at that gorgeous face..."

Shifting closer, Neil took her face between his hands and carefully tipped it towards the light, one thumb straying up to gently test the areas he could see some swelling beginning.

"See you got smacked in the schnoz here--any pain with pressure?"

From:

fondofapples

In truth, she was relieved about the ankle. She could teleport around if she had to, but the level of deception she had to engage in to avoid the wrong people learning she could do it wasn't good for her. Lies weren't black magic, but deception fed the urges.

Her face...as long as it didn't look like she'd gotten a beating, she didn't care. And since she could hide any bruising easily enough with a glamour, she'd shrugged it off after holding ice to it for a short while. It would heal. Now, though, with Neil's fingers on the swelling, it ached enough to make her lift her hand to his reflexively to make him stop.

"A little. Did it bruise while I was trying to sleep?"

From:

hellorhighwater

"Nah, I've just been hit enough times myself to spot it." he replied, tapping the bridge of his nose--with a very subtle defect at the bridge she would spot if she gave it a closer look, indicating a previous break--before he drew one hand away from her face and flicked a ball of fire into being, rolling it onto the back of his hand as he had with her headache before he curled his glowing-coal hand against her cheek.

"And it's not gonna bruise--this I can fix, hang on..."

Neil's eyes fell shut as he concentrated. Following his magic as he channeled heat into her body, he sent his awareness into her body again, focusing on the abused cartilage and soft tissue...it wasn't all that different from a migraine, controlling the blood flow, and if he really concentrated he might be able to patch some of them the way he sealed his own wounds, with a little bit of heat...

The warmth that pulsed beneath her skin, spreading not just across her face but down the back of her neck, began to burn just a little along her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose while he worked in silence, but gradually the heat began to cool, and as he pulled his awareness out of her veins and tissues, he actually smoothed both thumbs over the bridge of her nose with gentle pressure as he held her face--the pad of each thumb, shockingly, freezing cold as it touched her skin.

"Sorry sorry sorry," he apologized softly, repeating the action, "just wanna ease the pain--and help with the swelling."

From:

fondofapples

Her face did hurt while he worked his heat magic over it, and she swore she could almost feel the vessels being cauterized as the heat burned through and around them. But it was a minor pain, nothing compared to what she'd felt the day she'd earned the scar on her mouth he seemed so found of. In fact nothing by comparison to the bite he'd delivered in the shower three days ago, but she declined to tell him that, because it would only hurt him.

She made no sound while he worked over the damage but gasped at the freezing chill from his thumbs. She hadn't known he could do that, and fuck-damn that was cold. Still she bit her tongue until he stopped and then murmured, "Thank you, love. You're good to me."

From:

hellorhighwater

"I'm a bastard for surprising you with that." he snickered, leaning in to kiss her forehead gently before drawing back to smile at her. "But trust me, it's better than scrunching up to brace for it."

Dropping his hands--which had started to go dangerously pale, specifically around his thumbs, Neil rubbed them together briskly as he channeled heat back into them, warming up again.

"Took me years to learn to do that--ice my hands." he explained with a smile that was pure mischief. "Night Dragon taught me how to draw the fire into my core so I could travel through the tundra without freezing to death...so of course I figured out how to use it to prank my buddies in the barracks. Slow my heart rate, cool my skin--fake corpse. Trust me, it was fuckin' hilarious when I was sixteen. Figured out how to pull all the heat out by the time I was...twenty two? Twenty three? Somethin' like that. Anyway, it's a fun trick: fire mage with cold hands. Helps with icing injuries, shit like that."

Not unlike he had with her headache, the stream of chatter wasn't his usual babbling, just a soothing stream of background as he finished restoring the heat of his hands, then continued his impromptu triage of her curse-inflicted injuries.

"Anyway, most of this I'll just help you heal in bed--I want that ankle elevated." he finished, shifting to get to his feet so he could move around the bathroom. "Just one more thing, and we're done...whatever that gum did, there's still a chunk in your hair, right by your ear. Not big, but you sleep on that and you're gonna hate life in the morning...damn it--where's your brush, Beloved?"

From:

fondofapples

Truthfully, Regina felt a little woozy after the cold shock and she was grateful for the steady stream of conversation to give her something to focus on. Especially when he moved off the bed, the jostling of the mattress left her a little nauseated from the pain.

"On the dressing table," she said after the wave of it passed and dutifully didn't reach to see how much gum was left in her hair. She'd trust Neil to get it out. If she had to, she could glamour her hair until it grew back. She'd considered hacking it all off earlier when--

"No, wait. It's in the bathroom. I used it earlier when I was getting the rest out." A soft frown at the pain in her head from calling out and she added more quietly, "Will you bring me water, love, and the aspirin?"

From:

hellorhighwater

"On it, Beloved!" he called out over his shoulder as he did just that, retrieving all three from the bathroom before returning to her with a glass of water, the brush tucked into his back pocket--and the whole bottle of aspirin.

"Couldn't remember how many you gave me--and I can't take medication like a regular person, so figured I'd let you dose it out." he explained with a rueful grin, settling behind her on the edge of the bed. Contemplating the piece of gum, he thought for a moment...then gave up on conventional methods, and any hope of being remotely impressive for the moment and combed his fingers gently through her hair, speaking the spell he used for translocation.

Holding out one hand, palm extended, he waited for the tiny flurry of coal bright ash to emerge from her hair as he carded his fingers through it, the wad of gum reappearing neatly in his hand. Grinning, he leaned forward, pressing himself against her back to show her the gum.

"Here, this'll cheer you up." he declared--then promptly ignited a dragon fire flame in his hand to obliterate the offending was before he straightened again, then took up the brush to start working it through her hair with sure, steady strokes to make sure he hadn't missed any pieces.

From:

fondofapples

"Most modern drugs are two tablets per dose. I don't know why they don't just make them one, but it seems to be something of a constant. Maybe people think a single pill can't be effective and default to two, so they split the dose for safety."

It was the same sort of not exactly nonsense babble as he'd given her before, she realized, along with realizing he probably didn't care or need to know. Then again, Charlie or Arya could get sick and she might not be around. It wouldn't hurt for him to know, and the kind of day she'd had, being able to say anything at all to him was a relief. To have him here without having to worry she'd hurt him.

She did smile when he annihilated the gum in her hair; it would've been handy to be able to do that earlier. "Gum tentacle monster. It tried to give a few people unscheduled prostate exams." Then the brush began to work its purely mundane magic and she let out a soft, quiet sigh as her shoulders relaxed.

"Thank you, Neil. I... really needed you tonight."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil tried to picture the gum monster trying to shove tentacles...he stopped immediately and failed to force back a shudder before he resumed brushing Regina's hair for her. The way the tension bled out of her shoulders with a sigh shoved the air out of his lungs--not with lust, but with the force of what he felt for her. The love, the tenderness that threatened to rupture his lungs was violent, not something he ever believed love or tenderness could be.

The brush paused again so he could bend his head and kiss her shoulder. As he did, he whispered a spell against her skin. Fire flashed in his eyes where she couldn't see, but a tiny ripple of energy would be visible, a soft coal glow passing through her skin before it faded to nothing.

"Summoning spell's permanent now." he explained quietly, rubbing a hand along her arm as he pressed his cheek to hers for a second. "Say my name when I sleep and I'll wake up--speak my title when I'm awake, your title, and I'll know you need me."

In light, or in dark--if she wanted her dragon knight, Neil would be there.